


Surrender

by pulpofiction (pifflapodus_scriptor)



Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra
Genre: Angst, F/M, Romance, aaaand shower sex, agni kais
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-28
Updated: 2014-07-28
Packaged: 2018-02-10 20:41:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,434
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2039379
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pifflapodus_scriptor/pseuds/pulpofiction
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mako asks Korra for help on a firebending test. It goes about as well as you would expect. Fits neatly between Books 2 and 3.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Surrender

**Author's Note:**

  * For [BobLoblawLawBlog](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BobLoblawLawBlog/gifts).



> written to pay off a debt but damn i'm glad i did

Mako counts his lucky stars, all three of them, that Bei Fong was willing to forgive his unorthodox investigation (her words, not his) into the cultural center bombings. But, she informs him, that’s as far as she will allow him to go. Everything from here on has to be done by the book, and not just by the book but by every single chapter and page and line of text in. that. book.

And there it is, on page 157 of the Rules and Procedures Manual:  _Firebender candidates for detective positions must have attained a third-degree brown belt or higher under the rankings determined by the International Firebending Council of Sages._

Mako frowns as he reads, Bei Fong’s finger planted squarely on the page. He bites his bottom lip with anxious energy, glancing up at Bei Fong as she leans forward over her desk.

“But I don’t have a third-degree brown belt. I never even got a belt rank,” he says, unable to keep a plaintive note out of his voice; the firebending master who taught him how to bend is in jail, serving thirty to life for racketeering. But they both know Mako has too much pride to try appealing to Bei Fong’s sympathies.

“Then get one,” she says, and punctuates by clapping the book shut,  _whap_ , blowing a small puff of dust into the golden air of late afternoon. Mako sighs and slumps in the chair. He has no choice. Korra is his  _only_  choice.

* * *

Korra’s first instinct was to say  _yes, I’ll help you_ , but her second was to say  _no, find someone else._  The distance between them is precise, fixed - since they broke up they haven’t moved a single step in either direction, not closer together nor farther apart. And it’s a distance just short enough for her to feel him tracing the lines of her face with his gaze, when he thinks no one is looking; a distance just long enough for her to ignore it, and let him. Mako has to get over it, she thinks. Get over  _her_.

But she still meets Mako at the probending arena, in the huge practice room where almost a year ago she bowled him over with a medicine ball.

“The only way to get a belt is if a firebending master gives it to you,” Korra says, and digs her own black fabric belt out of her gym bag.  She tosses the belt to Mako, standing a few feet away in his white tank top and black pants, and he catches it, letting it unroll from his hand to the floor, frowning as usual.

“And how does that happen?” he drawls, his expression deepening in thought.

“You have an Agni Kai with the master and then they rank your technique,” Korra says, bracing her hands on her hips, her shoulders squared with pride, “and lucky for you, the Council of Sages recognizes me as a master.”

Mako glances at her, his eyebrows raised, clearly impressed.

“So… can’t you just give me the belt?” he says, with a lopsided smile, and it’s only half a joke.

Korra snorts  _tch_ in response, snapping the belt out of his hand and whipping it once through the air with a snap of cloth.

“First I’ll rank you, to see where you’re at, and we can just work from there,” Korra says. She ties the belt around her waist in a loose approximation of the traditional style, the tails hanging out of the knot in uneven lengths. She also shed her regular clothes for this, opting instead for a dark blue tank top of her own and her raggiest grey pair of work-out trousers. 

“Fine,” he mutters, and slouches towards the center of the room. Korra is reminded irresistibly of the way he walked off to the showers on the night they first met, sullen and disinterested, his voice skirting the edge of sarcasm.  _Nice to meet you, Avatar Korra._

But Mako’s face is different now. Softer and warmer, all the hard edges worn down. There’s less of the scathing aloofness that hammered down on his expressions, the lines of his mouth and the cast of his eyes, whenever things like  _feelings_ started to leak out. She can see it in her mind like two photographs held up side by side, before and after. Before her and after her.

“Take fifteen steps that way,” Korra says, meeting him in the center of the room, a foot of distance between them. He nods and doesn’t move, looking down at her with a faint smile, and Korra’s stomach does an uncomfortable lurch. She doesn’t want Mako to look at her like that, with his distracted, bright-eyed gaze; like every gesture she makes is a mudra in blessing just for him. It only makes things harder.

“Mako, turn  _around_ ,” she says, drawing a circle in the air with her finger, and he startles.

“Right,” he says, and they pace off the distance. Even with her back to him, Korra doesn’t miss his soft, frustrated huff, and by her tenth step she’s grinding her teeth against a small surge of anger.

On her fifteenth step she swivels on her heel, lifting her open hands, one extended out and the other by her chest. For a second they lock eyes from across the room.

If he’s nervous about sparring with her, he’s not showing it. His stance is, at the very least, calm and relaxed, resting easily on his bare feet, his muscled shoulders sloping downwards with a natural grace. She always liked his shoulders.

“Don’t hold back - ” Mako starts, almost in afterthought - Korra throws out a huge bolt of fire, roaring gold and scarlet from her fist - and as Mako waves it aside with a sweep of his arms she leaps forward and lances two more bolts with effortless, spinning kicks - he stumbles backwards and Korra snarls with adrenaline, her heartbeat thundering in her chest.

She throws her fists out in front of her, sends a bristling dart of fire searing through the air, and the whole room seems to darken around its brilliant, scorching glow. Mako hasn’t thrown a single punch yet, not a single candle’s worth of fire - but she knows him too well for that to work. 

“This isn’t probending! You won’t outlast me!” she shouts, and twists as she hooks with her right, a white-tipped spear of fire trailing yellow threads of flame. Mako bares his gritted teeth, throwing himself to the left and rolling into a crouch - Korra advances with relentless power, the names of the forms coming back to her as she calls fire from her body - Swallow Kick, Enter the Gate, Black Tiger Steals Heart - she’s several yards away and Mako jumps with a high overhead kick, a sleek, precise arc of fire from his foot, his face contorted with effort -  _finally_.

She dives forward knees first, her arms swept behind her, tearing the fire open like a curtain - Korra’s bare feet hit the floorboards with a hollow thump. She grips his shoulder and his forearm, forces him a step forward, and unbalances him with a cursory kick to his ankle - throwing Mako to the floor with offhand ease. He lands hard with a solid, heavy  _OOF!_ on his back at her feet.

Korra stares down at him, panting for breath, sweat rolling down her face in cool, shining streaks, all her muscles tense and hot with the blazing feeling of unqualified victory. And Mako stares back, his chest heaving with dry, breathless sound. He lost the way a lit match loses to a wildfire.

“You can do better than that. I’ve  _seen_  you do better than that,” Korra says. She can’t keep the growl of disappointment out of her voice. The firebender lying at her feet is not the same firebender who stood alone on the edge of a platform and took out an entire probending team by himself, surviving until he attacked, attacking until he won.

Mako doesn’t respond. She drops his arm and leans over him, bracing her hands on her knees, her wolf-tails swinging forward. Korra can see the pinprick drops of sweat in his black hair and dotting his forehead. They catch the light and for a brief moment Korra remembers a different kind of victory - her lips on his skin, their bodies slick with heat, all of Mako shuddering underneath her, nails digging frantically into her thighs as he surrenders -

She looks at her feet, frowning as she thinks.

“Did I go too hard? Is that the problem? ‘Cause it shouldn’t be. You’ve kept up with me before,” she says, looking back at him, and his lips press together. There is a long moment of silence.

“Let’s just do it again,” Mako snaps, and jumps to his feet, pacing out the distance in a few short seconds.

Korra straightens up and takes a stance again. The floor underfoot is already blackened and scorched from their firebending. This time, she decides, she’ll wait.

She waits.

Mako hasn’t moved. His eyes are fixed, sharp and narrow, on her. 

Korra’s blood starts to rise and she grinds her jaw. He won’t pass any firebending test like this. Maybe he’s just having an off day; her firebending master taught her a trick for that, something left over from the war.  _A cheat for undisciplined amateurs_ , Sifu Padma called it, _but the Fire Nation almost conquered the world that way._

“Come on, Detective,” Korra says, “don’t you want to keep your fancy new job?”

She forces down the guilt as his face darkens. Good. 

“Or maybe you just want to go back to writing tickets,” Korra says.

With a furious, guttural growl Mako swings his arm like a stiff, underhanded throw, flinging a comet of fire across the room, so hot and strong the air shimmers - Korra breaks it with a rigid motion of her fists, easily, because firebending with anger is power without control -

But Mako follows through with a confident roundhouse kick. She grunts as the concussive force of fire hits her like a battering ram, pushing her several steps back, and smirks. Now they’re getting somewhere.

“Keep going like that and you might just scrape by,” she calls out.

The air is thick with the salty, ashy scent of fresh firebending. Korra shakes her head, clearing her eyes of smoke. A bead of sweat slides down Mako’s forehead, curls along his jaw, and falls into empty space. He braces himself, the lines of his body pulling taut, expression locked in clenched-teeth resolve.

Even like that, he’s still not ready. Korra swiftly turns her fists and flings two long whips of fire across the gym floor, snapping the air with loud cracks. He slices through the first whip and handsprings away from the second, fire licking his shoulder as he leaps. If he’s still trying to outlast her, it won’t work - she advances a second time with the whips, lashing out again and again, boxing him towards the corner -

She’s close enough to see soot, running in long, sweaty tracks down his muscles, when Mako suddenly swerves and with a burst of power steps off the wall, launching himself over her in a tall, athletic leap - smart, but not good enough. His plan is obvious to her trained fighter’s eye: trap her against the wall, reverse their positions, finish her with a whirling kick, always the strongest part of his form…

By the time the ball of his foot touches the floor Korra already has her fist pulled back, smiling grimly. His heel lands. She crosses.

The blow of fire hits him in the chest and he tumbles to the floor, rolling once and stopping in an exhausted sprawl on the floor. 

“I’m not some two-bit triad thug,” she says. “You’ll need to do better than that for a belt.”

He lifts himself onto all fours with a groan, his chest straining against his sweat-soaked shirt as he gasps for breath. Korra stands over him, cocking one hip with her hand on the other, waiting for him to look up. She’s had enough, he’s had more than enough; and maybe they should just go home. This was a mistake.

“Do you know how a real Agni Kai ends?” she says -

\- and Mako lunges for her, tackling her around the legs and toppling her to the floor. She has just enough time to be surprised before he’s pinning her down, his grip tight around her wrists. Korra lies flat on her back underneath him, gazing into his face. It wouldn’t take much to throw him off, practically nothing… but she doesn’t.

The dark space he creates between them is warm, both of them breathing with their whole bodies, her hips clasped between his knees. And he’s so close to her, close enough Korra can see the flicker of fire in his eyes -  _real_  fire, the fire she remembers him having, that stubborn, passionate spark she fell in love with. 

“I know how an Agni Kai ends,” Mako growls. “It ends when someone gets burned.”

She can also see every curve of his lips, his beautiful, knife-like mouth. She huffs, struggling to contain the unbearable ache of longing, chain it back to her ire. 

“Mako - ”

“I can’t do this. I don’t know how to fight you.”

A fleeting smile, slight and sad, crosses his face. Without another word he releases his hold and clambers to his feet. He leaves her with a sadness, a dense cold that spreads through her like pooling water. Korra watches him lope towards his gym bag, his bare feet noiseless on the floorboards, the back of his shirt darkened by a triangle of sweat.  

The heavy door squeaks as it falls closed and Mako disappears. Her heartbeat thuds through her body, frantic and drum-like, and her muscles twitch as they relax and cool.

"That went just great, Korra,” she mutters to the empty room, the air still tinged with that ashy firebending smell. 

Why did it have to come to this? In her mind a desk crashes to an office floor, papers fluttering around them like a startled flock of birds, and she covers her face with one hand, swallowing back the bitterness. And the Tree of Time, throwing her memories against its hollow trunk with the bright, indefinite movement of water reflecting light in a well, showing Korra what Mako couldn’t bring himself to tell her: they didn’t work.

It would’ve been easy to pretend like she remembered nothing, to just accept Mako’s confession for what it was - a plea, tucked into the lining of an apology - and keep going. Just like that. Just like that, she could have had him back. The wide-eyed, late-night thoughts that crawl into bed with her, quivering with nostalgia, would’ve taken their best and truest form: him, sleeping beside her, sighing into the calm, quiet dark. All the vitriol forgotten. Every regret reversed.

But Mako said it himself. And, lying there on the floor, her breath still rising short and dry towards the black windows, Korra realizes she doesn’t know how to fight him either.  

She goes looking and finds him in the showers by the distant hiss of hot water. Steam is spilling, overflowing from the second-to-last stall, rising into the stark concrete locker room and fading all the mirrors. His old white towel hangs on the hook next to the curtain, his gym bang slumping off the wooden bench. Korra tosses her things onto the same bench and starts to undress. She might as well shower too, while they talk. 

"Korra? Is that you?" Mako says through the curtain, his voice rising over the liquid warble of the shower.

"Who else would it be?" she says casually, untying her black belt. He doesn’t answer.

She fidgets, fiddling with the ties on her trousers, grasping for a no-man’s-land. 

"Look, your bending technique is good, and your power’s always been great, and if you learn a few more advanced forms you won’t have a problem," she says, crossing her arms to her waist and stripping off her tank top.

"Okay," Mako says, after a pause. 

"You know enough already. They shouldn’t be that hard to master. I can give you the names of some pretty decent form books."

She steps out of her trousers, stuffs them into her gym bag, and undoes her hair ties, waiting. Then his answer comes back, terse and short: “Yeah, okay.”

Korra frowns and rummages into the bag for her shampoo, thwacking the bottle angrily onto the wooden bench. This is unfair. This is  _so_  unfair. She wheels around, glaring at the pastel blue shower curtain, fighting hard against the sudden force of her bristling temper.

"Mako, look. You asked for my help. So now, I’m trying to  _help_  you. But you’re making it really fucking  _hard_  for me to do that - “

"Like it was any easier for me to ask,” he snaps.

"Okay, you know what?!" she says, yanking the shower curtain aside. "I’m so tired of - oh!"

Korra freezes, coloring hotly from her face to her neck. That was a stupid idea. Mako is naked. Of course he’s naked. He’s in the shower, streaked with hot water and foamy traces of soap, his skin glistening with steam. She tries to pull the curtain closed but he keeps it open, dropping a hand to cover himself, and she begins pointedly counting shower tiles.

“Tired of  _what_ ,” Mako says, fixing her with a look.

“…I’m tired of fighting,” Korra says. Her anger collapses and she lowers her eyes to the floor, the water pooling across the tiles and over the mat.

“Yeah. Me too,” he says. “Let’s just… ” 

He sighs, somewhat in disbelief, and holds out his hand.  _Let’s just forget._  

Korra takes his hand and he pulls her into the shower. They’re surrendering, both of them, their fixed distance slackening and folding as the ends come together. The water runs over her steady and hot, soaking her hair, snaking down her bare stomach. Mako grasps her hips and closes the distance with a kiss so hungry he leaves her starving.

It’s only been a few weeks, enough time to forget, but everything comes back to Korra at once: the feeling of his tongue sliding into her mouth, insistent and forceful; his teeth, tugging sharply on her lip, the way he threads a hand into her hair, tilting her head and baring her neck to his long, sweeping kisses. She clutches his shoulder, closing her eyes as a new heat breaks through her, traveling from her head to her hips in a heady wave.

“My clothes,” she breathes, and Mako wraps his arms around her to undo the sarashi, his mouth still sucked to her neck, drawing fire from her blood. He breaks away to toss the sarashi over the shower rod and then drags her soaking wet underwear down her hips, her thighs, her calves. He kneels on one leg so she can step out of them, the shower water rolling down the dips and shallow grooves of his broad, muscled back. A crisp warm shiver seizes her as he briefly slips a thumb inside her, enough for a light moan to fall from her mouth.

Korra can’t lie to herself. She missed this - she missed having her desire coaxed out of her by a hand other than her own, Mako’s quiet, revered adoration of her body, and the ease with which he breathes life into the embers. He reaches for the white bar of soap in his shadow caddy and grips her thigh, urging her to turn around. 

“Ashes all over the place,” he murmurs, with just a touch of amused exasperation, as he soaps his hands. Too much firebending always leaves her covered in a fine layer of soot, with the odd blackened smudge, and the dry smell of smoke can cling for hours.

She sways slightly as he lathers her legs in soap and then rises to her waist, his broad, slippery hands sliding in smooth paths over her body. Mako stands up fully and curls his muscled arms around her, covering her in a thin sheen of white foam with swift, curving passes of his palms across her midriff and up her torso. He finds her ear with his mouth and the hard knot of pressure builds between her legs with every quick, urgent dart of his tongue, each teasing bite.

His cock is hardening, nudging against her rear, and Korra bites her lip, squirming in his embrace. She doesn’t want to rush this. She wants to stay here as long as she can, with the water falling ceaselessly onto her skin and Mako’s unerring touch all over her, his longing freed from restraint. They can give up, just for a moment, and it’ll be okay.

She grabs his wrists and tugs upwards. Mako hums in understanding and massages her breasts, hands slick and sliding under the sensitive curves, squeezing, lightly pinching her nipples. She reaches up and behind to run her fingers into his hair, pulling his head to the side of her neck, slack-jawed and dizzy as Mako’s one hand glides downwards, past her navel and through her thatch of coarse black hair.

His two fingers curve into her and his thumb presses against her clit, sending another delirious wave to her head, her pulse pounding as the knot tightens. A long, low groan shudders out of her as Mako thrusts stronger and faster with his fingers, rivulets streaming down his forearm and off his knuckles. She can feel him fully hard now.

“Yeah,” she gasps, each word hoarse and staccato, “yeah - yeah,  _fuck_  - the wall, on the wall, Mako, I want you - “

“Hold on,” he says, stepping away, and Korra eagerly fills the absence of his fingers with her own as all the soap washes off. Mako tears the shower curtain aside and leans out to fumble into his gym bag, lifting out and ripping open a square foil. He dries his cock with the towel, rolls the condom on, and then lifts her, pushing her back to the tiled wall under the showerhead. Korra grabs the showerhead for purchase with one hand and almost burns herself - the pipe is scalding hot but she clings to it anyway, flinging her other arm around his neck.

She cries out as he thrusts into her once - slamming into her, throbbing and charged and full, a rush that flows forward and falls away. He throws his head back, breathing hard, as though giving time for the feeling of her to sink in. Korra puffs water from her lips and gives his tousled wet hair a sharp yank.

“Don’t stop there,” she says, as he opens his eyes, and their foreheads touch. The look in his eyes, half-lidded, pupils oily black and blown, starts to overpower her thoughts. 

“No need to hurry,” he says, and hikes her leg up for a better angle, seizing her thigh with a bruising grip. Without breaking her gaze and with another powerful thrust Mako sends another deep shudder through her body. Korra makes a sound halfway between a sob and a shout and he catches it, closing onto her lips with a kiss.

He thrusts again and his mouth muffles her high-pitched whine as she claws her nails into his back, begging him to go faster. Mako gradually quickens his pace, all of their wordless syllables disappearing into the ceaseless sound of falling water.

Her shoulder blades slide up and down the cool tiled wall as he pushes into her, again and again and again, at last reaching the speed where all her senses start to fall away. Her arm starts to ache from the strain of holding onto the showerhead but Korra just bows her head into the crook of his neck, recklessly biting down, blind desire spiraling through her body - why did they ever try to fight this? why did they think they would win? why does he feel the need to choke out four little words  _i still love you_  as though she doesn’t already know - as though they won’t just vanish into the pale steam billowing around them - as though she doesn’t still love him too - ? 

_Why_? She screams into Mako’s neck, her orgasm exploding through her with nerve-searing pleasure. Her back arches against the wall and her muscles clench as she spasms around him, feeling it hit her over and over with an overwhelming dizziness. His own strangled cry follows before she finishes and Mako holds her even tighter as he comes, pressing their bodies together with hard, desperate strength. 

He sets her down, her feet splashing into the puddles on the floor, and pulls the curtain aside to throw out the condom. And that’s when Korra sees it, even through her thoughtless, blissful haze. She didn’t see it before, and he didn’t tell her… a glossy pink burn on his shoulder blade, the aftermath of her fire whip, and the answer to  _why_  comes swinging through the air; the precise, swift stab of reason. That’s why.

“Mako, your shoulder,” she says, as he embraces her under the water, gathering her up.

"Shhh. It’s not a big deal," Mako murmurs, cupping her head to his chest.

Korra still reaches around, feeling for the burn and calling water to her fingers. The burn is gone in seconds, wiped clean off by healing, but it doesn’t change anything. Her mind can’t change, for both their sakes - but Korra rests against him anyway, Mako holding her with his cheek pressed to her wet hair, both of them unwilling to let go and both of them wondering who will reach for the tap first.

And, to her surprise, he does.

* * *

The next day, Korra pays a visit to the Fire Temple in Republic City, asking for any Fire Sages who might be on the International Council, and begs a favor from one master to another. Sifu Lawan, a tall, stately woman with dark brown skin and dark orange eyes, readily agrees, and Korra leaves with Lawan’s promise to teach well and rank fairly. Her new student will come introduce himself tomorrow.

Two weeks later, Bolin tells her Mako ranked a first-degree brown belt, two levels higher than he needed, and Korra grins with pride. She’s happy for him, and has half a mind to call him with congratulations - but she won’t. It’s Bolin telling her, not Mako. And it’s Mako asking Bolin to tell her, because he can’t; and it’s the truth, lodging into her heart like a shard of glass: he’s still fighting.


End file.
